Public speaking has become an important part of life. Be it debate and elocution competitions in schools, or sitting in Group Discussions as a part of interview process or giving talks, presentations and other vocal activities as part of school and work, some public speaking skill seems to be essential to succeed everywhere. Even if you are in a career where there isn’t a lot of it demanded, even a simple aspect of work like presenting a progress report can be made much better if the presenter has some essential skills.

Some of the greatest orators in the world have been studied over time, and a few aspects that are common to them have emerged. These can be applied to daily life and public speaking opportunities to do much better at the demands of today’s life.

Preparation: Great speakers present well on the topic and do not just read off from a paper a speech that was prepared by someone else. They think from the listener’s perspective: what would they like to hear? If I were in the audience, how would I like this material to be presented?

They also read on topics which are related so that they are prepared for questions or to change tacks if they see the audience getting bored. They anticipate questions from the point of view of the listener and keep some fun facts up their sleeve to jazz thing up.

Presentation: How you arrange technical aspects is important. From your voice, your dress, to actual physical objects in your presentation space, all add to or take away from the clarity you can have. For PowerPoint presentations, keep them simple and uncluttered because audience cannot read and listen to you at the same time. Check out the book ‘Presentation Zen’ for more on PowerPoint presenting. Try not to talk from behind a podium because it hinders your connection with the audience. However, if there is no choice, use your hands a lot and lean forward to show you want to connect with your audience. Do so voice warmup exercises and make sure your throat is fine on the day of speaking. Wear simple, elegant clothing that does not attract too much attention.

Engagement: Engaging with the listeners is crucial. Take pauses, see if they understand – don’t just prattle off. If they are getting bored, change tacks or use a fun fact. Use less jargon, and avoid using long sentences. Move from one concept to another in a logical flow and sum up at the end. Have questions towards the end and answer them to the best of your ability. If you do not know, humbly say so. No point getting into an ‘I’m the expert’ fight with an audience member. Diplomacy is the key.

Feedback: Finally, be open to feedback. Ask audience what could have been done better. Do mock sessions with friends and family and ask where you can improve. Use this feedback to improve on your technique and you’ll be an ace speaker in no time!

All of us are face with working lives where we have multiple roles and duties. Some of us seem to be doing effortlessly well in our jobs while others struggle.

Why does this happen?

There are many aspects to dealing with work pressure successfully. According to research in job stress, the following tips can help you manage work pressure at a personal level.

Time management

We have limited work hours, and it is important to make a time-schedule for your duties. Not only is it important to have a deadline for the whole task, but it even helps to have a time boundary for the smaller steps of each task. Therefore, even if one step has taken more time than it should, you know then and there about the changes to be made.

Goal setting

Following from time management, it is important to know how to set goals, if they are to be allotted time boundaries. Goals should be systematic, attainable and time-bound. Very ambitious goals are unlikely to be achieved. After this, each step that would need to be accomplished before the next step has to be noted down.

Stress management

Stress helps us to realize that a deadline is approaching. However, beyond that if stress or worry bothers us, they get in the way of our work. Physical exercise, breathing techniques, relaxation, yoga and a general healthy lifestyle helps to keep stress at bay.

Work relationships

Most of us need the help of our juniors, seniors and colleagues to get work done. Therefore, it is important to have good work relationships. Greet and smile people genuinely, and compliment them on their good work. Asserting yourself works better than aggression in times of disagreement.

Anger management

A lot of talented employees do not make it to the top because their anger does not let them concentrate. It also spoils the relationships they have with bosses, juniors and colleagues and this gets in their way of climbing the ladder. Anger can be managed well by using de-escalation techniques. This involves thinking about the signs which tell you when you are getting angry. As your temper is rising, you have to do certain mental exercises like a complex calculation, counting backwards, deep breathing or some other pranayama methods. De-escalation means to stop the anger mid-way before it escalates.

Work-life balance

Lastly, a highly valued employee is one who is vibrant and fresh when coming to work each day. You are more likely to generate ideas and do high quality work, if you are fresh each morning at work. This is not possible if you are in the habit of carrying work back home. The reason being, that unless you take a break, a bunch of your brain cells are continuously doing the same work, and they get too tired to function when it actually matters.

This is the same principle why mugging up last minute before the exam does not help increase your scores. Therefore, interacting with family and friends, doing things you like and getting good sleep is also important to handle work pressure.

Feeling stressed is quite common these days. Demands on individuals have increased and the pace of life has really picked up. We always have to get so many things done all at once.

In such a hectic and busy life, is it possible to manage our stress?

Yes, definitely. One only needs to know how.

The most effective key to stress relaxation is to use one’s breath adequately. Increased oxygen intake can reach the brain within seconds and help to calm us. There are many kinds of relaxation and breathing techniques, the easiest to understand and practice are 4-square breathing, JPMR muscle relaxation, and mindfulness meditation.

4 square breathing:

Inhale (for four counts) 1,2,3,4

Hold 1,2,3,4

Exhale 1,2,3,4

Rest 1,2,3,4

This is like 4 sides of a square, thus called four square breathing. This can be repeated multiple times till the person feels calmer.

8 muscle group relaxation:

Each muscle group has to be tensed for 30 seconds and then released before moving on to the next muscle group. The eyes should be closed while doing this.. When doing this for the first time, start with one or two rounds of it.

Upper chest and chest – inhaling into the upper lungs and holding for a count of ten

Shoulders – picking them up towards the ears

Back of the neck – pushing the head back

Face – squinting eyes, scrunching features towards the tip of the nose.

Forehead and scalp – raising eyebrows.

(You can give a gap of 30 seconds or more between each muscle group)

Mindfulness meditation:

Mindfulness is a school of thought that believes in concentrating in the moment completely, and doing only one task at a time.

It is easy for our mind to jump, and this contributes to the restlessness we often feel that makes us stressed. Although mindfulness is a philosophy that can be extended to the whole day, you can start by practicing meditation.

Hands rest on the thighs, facing down.

The eyes are somewhat open and the gaze rests gently on the floor in front of you about four to six feet away.

The idea is that whatever is in front of you is what's in front of you. Don't stare or do anything special with your gaze; just let it rest where you've set it.

Begin by just sitting in this posture for a few minutes in this environment. If your attention wanders away, just gently bring it back to your body and the environment.

The key word here is "gently." Your mind will wander; that's part of what you will notice with your mindfulness: minds wander. When you notice that yours has wandered, come back again to body and environment.

The second part of the practice is working with the breath. In this practice rest your attention lightly (yes, lightly) on the breath.

Feel it as it comes into your body and as it goes out. There's no special way to breathe in this technique.

Once again, we are interested in how we already are, not how we are if we manipulate our breath.

If you find that you are, in fact, controlling your breath in some way just let it be that way.

Love is a powerful emotion, and a whole lot of us feel overwhelmed by it at times. One of the most commonly discussed neurochemicals in the context of love, is oxytocin. It goes up significantly in the brain when we hug or kiss someone we love, and makes us feel good by providing a boost. This reinforces the connection we have with that person.

Role of Dopamine and Serotonin:

However, love is neurochemically more than just that. Dopamine and Serotonin play an important role. Dopamine is influential in the reward system of the brain. When we do something that is useful for our survival, speaking in terms of evolution (hunting or mating), and our brain reinforces that behaviour so that we continue to do so and that furthers our chances to keep engaging in the behaviour. Being in love with someone increases our chances to mate with them and produce offspring, and so the brain rewards this behaviour with dopamine and that is the reason behind the ‘feel good’ sensation when we are in love.

Serotonin is a chemical that is associated with being able to control one’s mechanisms. Serotonin levels drop when people are in love, and one study shows that it drops to the same level as those of OCD patients who are not able to control their compulsions! Why does this happen? Again, evolutionarily speaking, if we were to stay in control, we would not really go out of our way to show love and kindness to the significant other of our lives. Bonds of strength would not get made, and the person would not feel compelled to enter a mating relationship with us. Therefore, it is necessary for us to relinquish control when in love, and that is what the brain does for us.

Adrenalin for lust:

Other chemicals that are also implicated when in love are adrenalin and cortisol. This actually has more to do with lust than love, but since lust is an important motivator, it is often the beginning. This is also why there is an emphasis to look good when looking for a partner, because lust gets triggered before love.

Why people feel lust and love together:

However, a puzzling finding is that although lust and love occupy overlapping regions in the brain, there are also some non-common areas to the two. This is why, people can feel lust and love together and also feel them for two different people. That is why, people who cheat on their partners often talk of still being in love with them. The puzzle is how this makes sense for mating behaviour. Maybe it is a protection against breaking old bonds just for enticement of new mating possibilities.

Overall then, there is a lot going on in the brain when we are in love and the notion of ‘crazy in love’ and ‘love is chemical’ may not be so wrong after all! This understanding can help us appreciate our excited state when in love and savor it if that is okay to do, or, if it is unsolicited, then blaming the chemicals is the best respite!

Although postpartum depression is one of the most common emotional problems new mothers face, psychosis, anxiety and OCD are also found to occur, though this is much rarer. Go through this article to understand a bit more about them so that you can help yourself or someone you know from sinking deeper into these emotional issues without help.

Image Source: akhbar-kosmo.blogspot.com

Postpartum Psychosis is a rare illness, compared to the rates of postpartum depression or anxiety. It occurs in approximately 1 to 2 out of every 1,000 deliveries, or approximately .1% of births. The onset is usually sudden, most often within the first 2 weeks postpartum.

Symptoms:

Symptoms of postpartum psychosis can include:

Delusions or strange beliefs

Hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that aren’t there)

Feeling very irritated

Hyperactivity

Decreased need for or inability to sleep

Paranoia and suspiciousness

Rapid mood swings

Difficulty communicating at times

A history of bipolar disorder, or any illness on the psychotic spectrum, even if in a family member, can contribute significantly. The birthing process puts hormones into overdrive and this can sometimes alter neurochemistry of the brain, leading to disturbance.

Post-partum Anxiety

Approximately 6% of pregnant women and 10% of postpartum women develop anxiety. Sometimes they experience anxiety alone, and sometimes they experience it in addition to depression.

Symptoms

The symptoms of anxiety during pregnancy or postpartum might include:

Constant worry

Feeling that something bad is going to happen

Racing thoughts

Disturbances of sleep and appetite

Inability to sit still

Physical symptoms like dizziness, hot flashes, and nausea

Risk factors for perinatal anxiety and panic include a personal or family history of anxiety, previous perinatal depression or anxiety, or thyroid imbalance. Sometimes, postpartum panic disorder, which is characterized by panic attacks can also occur.

On the spectrum between psychosis and anxiety lies OCD. OCD is a problematic issue because it can make the mother undertake dangerous cleaning habits with the infant, that may be very harmful for it.

Postpartum Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is the most misunderstood and misdiagnosed of the perinatal disorders. It is estimated that as many as 3-5% of new mothers and some new fathers will experience these symptoms. The repetitive, intrusive images and thoughts are very frightening and can feel like they come “out of the blue.”

Symptoms of perinatal OCD can include:

Obsessions, also called intrusive thoughts, which are persistent, repetitive thoughts or mental images related to the baby. These thoughts are very upsetting and not something the woman has ever experienced before.

Compulsions, where the mom may do certain things over and over again to reduce her fears and obsessions.

A sense of horror about the obsessions

Fear of being left alone with the infant

Hypervigilance in protecting the infant

Moms with postpartum OCD know that their thoughts are bizarre and are very unlikely to ever act on them.

Having a previous diagnosis of anxiety or family history of it can be a risk factor for OCD.